Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Hi George. Thanks , that was great. I am actually considering the new msb V series. Looks very intriguing. I'm working an audition hopefully later this summer. I'll report when I can.

From a technical standpoint, the paragraphs George quoted from the MSB literature all make sense to me, as opposed to being the kind of marketing techno-babble that seems all too common in audio-related white papers and other literature.

An additional theoretical advantage of using sign-magnitude architecture in a ladder DAC implementation, besides the one that is stated, is that the "offset binary" architecture they seem to be implying is used in other ladder DAC implementations will cause all of the bits to toggle (i.e., to change from 1 to 0 or 0 to 1) **simultaneously** at or near the critical 0 volt crossing. Which in turn can contribute to noise issues at that crossing, and hence degrade resolution at very low signal levels. With sign-magnitude, only a few bits would toggle at or near the 0 crossing.

I'd have to add, also, that providing 20.8 to 28.5 effective bits using a ladder approach, depending on model, as shown here, and not just for the D/A circuit but for the unit as a whole, is quite an amazing achievement. Primarily because of the incredibly tight +/- tolerances that would have to be met by the resistors in the ladder.

Which leads me to the one concern that is raised in my mind by a quick look at their writeups. Their focus seems to be on achieving the best possible performance at very low signal levels, i.e., near the 0 crossing. Which arguably makes a lot of sense. But consistent with that, I see in the figure I linked to that their measurements comparing their results with those of delta-sigma DACs were taken with the test signal at -90 db, a very low level. So what I wonder is how well the much superior performance of their approach that is depicted in the graph would hold up at moderate to high signal levels, if in fact it would hold up at all.

Just some thoughts to keep in mind. Best regards,
-- Al

Matt, we can figure out a good time to get together. I know that Johnny has the new Rom sig on order and once in, he'll run it straight to break it in for you to hear. He knows that already. I loved the Bricasti when I heard it in an all Tidal system in Philly. Ridge has that and I believe he feels the same way I do about it. I also know that everyone who owns the Berkley seems very very happy with it, but as I and others have posted, there are too many new models coming out within the next 12 months that will blow us away I believe. The more they get us into high rez, the better redbook is sounding.

07-11-15: Mattnshilp

I've had a crazy amount of speakers going through the room and seam to be narrowing it down nicely. My issue is that the pair I really really emotionally bond with are crazy expensive and the pair I'm comparing them with (which are exceptional but I can't quite seam to connect with as much) are way less expensive.

Now that's a problem. How much is that speaker? Who is the CFO of your household? Do you have a secret audio account which would enable you to slide it by the wife? My wife is the CFO so there is no chance in hell of that sort of thing coming to pass....

Matt, have u looked at the Trenner stuff out of Austria? They are designed to be used in standard living spaces and may be an option for your room. I have looked into their speakers with the idea of using them in a second system in a standard living space....

I agree with George and Al 100% about MSBs approach (and Totaldac for that matter). It seems to be the optimal approach for PCM.

I know another approach that some use that I agree with is hacking digital filtering (http://www.dddac.com).

Norman, when is Lucas going to develop chipless PCM?